Undocumentaries - Paperback

by Rosa Alcala (Author)

'Rosa Alcalá, originally from Paterson, N.J. is a true daughter of W.C. Williams with a distinct, gutsy, and penetrating identity twining a public poeisis with her own luminous particulars. I know of no one else writing such poems that cut into and reenact the "plebeian" with such personal force, eloquence, and skill. "The syntax of worry rewrites cellular codes" she writes and then proceeds to investigate and expose the Industrial Age and its "genetic drifts". A worker is "fighting like a girl for gloves", a kind of child's cognitive dissonance documents improperly stored chemicals, "the deep sleep of field hands" stirs memory as does the more current and common "paycheck clean of union dues." Undocumentariesis Archive made Poetry. "Factory is both fact and act and/mere letters away from face/and story . . ." Alcalá's imagination and language disarmingly penetrate and extend these powerful devices and activating signals. The face we see is hers and our culture's own. I celebrate this book.' (Anne Waldman)